A Choice for Priests in Sex Abuse Cases: Be Monitored, or Resign

By ANDY NEWMAN; Laurie Goodstein and Anahad O'Connor contributed reporting for this article.

Published: August 31, 2006

CORRECTION APPENDED

As the Roman Catholic Church struggles to repair itself and its image in the wake of the sex abuse scandals, one of the more confounding questions church leaders face is what to do with priests accused of abuse.

Some priests whose crimes fell within statutes of limitation are in jail. Some have been defrocked.

But others -- because they are elderly, because of the nature of their offenses, or because they have had some success fighting the charges -- cannot be defrocked under canon law. These priests occupy a sort of shadow world, stripped of most duties but still financially supported by the church and fairly free to move about, both angering the critics of the church and exposing the diocese to further liability.

Cardinal Edward M. Egan, head of the New York Archdiocese, is trying something new. Since June, he has offered seven priests that the archdiocese believes have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children a choice.

They can spend the rest of their lives in closely supervised housing, where, in addition to receiving regular therapy, they must fill out a daily log of their comings and goings. Or they can leave the priesthood and the lifetime security net that comes with it.

Priests who agree to enter the program move temporarily to a handsome, ivy-covered retreat house on Long Island Sound in a mansion-filled corner of Larchmont, N.Y., in Westchester County, a place where priests with troubles have long been sent.

The building, Trinity Retreat House, flanked by the sound on one side and an inlet on the other, is, unlike its neighbors, nearly invisible from the road, hidden behind leafy trees and an ivy-covered wall. In a few months, the priests are transferred to permanent housing elsewhere, said Joseph Zwilling, Mr. Egan's spokesman.

So far, five of the seven priests who received the letters have resigned rather than submit to monitoring. One priest has moved into the retreat house, and the other is on his way, Mr. Zwilling said.

It is difficult to determine how many other dioceses have a supervised-living program like the new one in New York. In the Chicago Archdiocese, nine priests accused of sex abuse live in a retreat house on the grounds of a seminary and are carefully monitored, officials there said, adding that they also planned to install surveillance cameras and keep the priests locked in the building during some hours.

A spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, William A. Ryan, said, ''There are several other dioceses that have similar programs, but unfortunately, none of them are willing to talk about it.''

In the New York Archdiocese, the priests who received the letter fall into one of several categories, Mr. Zwilling said.

Some have been convicted in a canonical trial but determined to be too elderly or infirm to endure being defrocked and are instead sentenced to a life of prayer and penance. Others have had the accusations against them referred to an archdiocesan advisory board consisting mostly of laypeople, including psychologists and lawyers. The board, which can interview the priest but does not have to, issues a recommendation to the cardinal on whether the priest should continue to minister.

The archdiocese notifies law enforcement authorities of all allegations that could result in criminal charges. But in many cases, with the accusations decades old, statutes of limitations had long since run out.

Those who defend priests have said the New York policy is too harsh, especially since the board that decides whether an accusation is credible does not have to give the priest a chance to defend himself. But Mr. Zwilling said the archdiocese was doing what it had to do.

''If there has been a finding and a belief that a cleric has misbehaved, we want to do all that we can to protect against such misbehavior occurring in the future,'' Mr. Zwilling said this week.

The letter to the priests states, ''The continued safety of our children and young people, the protection of the reputation and patrimony of the archdiocese, and your own well-being dictate that you enter this program and residence.''

The Rev. John P. Bambrick, a priest in the Trenton Diocese who says he was abused as a youth by a priest in Yonkers and who is now an advocate for victims, said that the program seemed in part like an attempt to force out abusive priests so that the church is no longer accountable for their actions.

''I don't think the archdiocese is doing this out of their great concern for children,'' he said. ''There's a liability issue here, and the archdiocese's lawyers have come up with this brilliant plan, which is either to corral them and control them or to force them to leave.''

He added that if the archdiocese really wanted to protect the public, it would publish the names of abusive priests and former priests. ''Unleashing them on society is not the responsible thing to do,'' he said.

Mr. Zwilling said the program was not an attempt to drive out problem priests. ''Our goal was to have them all participate in this program,'' he said. ''They are people who can make choices on their own, and this is what they have chosen.''

Correction: January 26, 2007, Friday
An article on Aug. 31 about a decision by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York to give some priests accused of child sexual abuse the choice of leaving the priesthood or moving to supervised housing in Westchester County -- an option that was later canceled -- misstated the jurisdiction of the archdiocese. It covers Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx in New York City, and seven other downstate counties -- not all of New York City and five other downstate counties. The error was discovered recently by a reporter reviewing The Times's archives.